when did you ask venue for discount?

my_definition

Baisically we were looking at venues today and we are thinking of provisionally booking one of the venues. Ive seen people on here getting discounts or getting extras thrown in and wondered if you asked for these before booking the date or when you were discussing things like menues a couple of months before the day.

We have looked at prices and they seem reasonable but that said its still a lot of money.

Thanks

LEJC

as a general rule if you want to negotiate on the price then its best done at the beginning.....
sometimes nearer the time of the wedding when you have definate numbers and that varies from the provisional number you booked,especially if its less then you could either negotiate a reduction in the final bill or the inclusion of extras

If you leave it until you have comitted to the venue before asking for a discount then its unlikely that they will move on the agreed price.

Rather than asking outright for a discount you could always ask is that your best price....or even making seemingly small changes can also reduce costs for example when we got married I didnt like the set menu and asked for something different which I would have preferred and actually turned out to be cheaper!...or instead of a dessert asking if your cake can be used instead can sometimes shave a generous chunk from the price.

The other thing to mention is that asking politely and not taking offence if the answer is no is the best way to negotiate too.

pledgeX

I'm in exactly the same position so can't say what worked for us, but I can tell you what I think!

If you've already booked the venue and paid your deposit, I can't see the venue dropping their prices unless they're feeling extremely kind. They've got your money (at least the deposit) so know you're not going to just walk away, so I'd be very surprised if they budge at all.

I started a thread on here a few weeks back about the best way to get money off, and the general consensus was that you're much more likely to get stuff thrown in for free rather than money off.

We got some more info back today from our potential venue and the prices of chair covers and corkage fees were a lot more than we were anticipating. Infact the cost of the covers and corkage combined is not a million miles off the price of the venue itself :eek:!

So we're going to try and negotiate these costs down a bit, if that fails we'll try and get some bubble thrown in or extra canapes or something.

The corkage may be a sticking point for us as there's no real alternative, but for chair covers we could get them in externally so I can imagine they'd be willing to offer a discount on this. After all £100 is better than £0. It's not like they cost the venue any money either (well apart from washing them).

my_definition

Thanks for the answers we havent booked it yet and theyve no money of us as weve got another few venues booked to look at.

Pledgex i saw that thread and was thinking getting extras - maybe the canapes as it seems like a popular place. Theyve a wedding fair in 2 weeks time so they might even fill in some dates then. I think we wil compose an email asking for best prices and see if we get anywhere. I phoned my mum earlier and her first question was are you getting a good deal haha

I hope you get your corkage thing sorted - the chairs in this place were ok and im not hugly fussed bout chair covers i might ask how much tht are but i think we would need to hire them somewhere else. Can i ask is corkage an english thing? Ive seen it on here but have never heard of it in scotland we were just going go go with the drinks package? Sound daft now